Boys and Girls
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AT, side-story to Replaying the Finale] Kotone has not forgotten Nene, but she has wiped her from her body. Zenjirou doesn't agree with her, but there is little he can do - until he stumbles upon a little present left behind by Wizardmon which may fix the failed past yet.


**A/N:** Written for Aiko's Timey-Wimery Ball Challenge on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile), with Kotone jumping into the past. I'm using that to take a few other liberties as well, such as the cross-dressing, which is more or less just taking Kotone's tomboy attire to the extreme. Also, the time-line diverges after Kotone's rescue here, so some things that occur after that in the manga are different.

The rest of the fic won't be written in present tense, nor in the same manner as the prologue. It'll be more the usual sort of writing you see from me; this is more a prologue introducing the foundation and providing a bit of groundwork for the actual chapters.

This will actually be a side-story to another fic, since it'll focus entirely on Kotone and Zenjirou attempting to save Nene, and not so much on Taiki, Kiriha and Akari who are doing more of the real world-changing stuff. That fic will be called "Replaying the Finale."

* * *

**Boys and Girls  
1. Prologue**

Kotone was supposed to stay young and innocent forever, forever being a lot longer than seven short years. But when she vanishes for two months and returns again, she is different. She cuts off her little buns of hair – and not neatly, but with jagged ends so that she looks more like a boy than ever. Her fluffy green jacket is gone as well, and she wears just a t-shirt and shorts.

Her relatives notice; it's hard to miss after all, even if the blood between them is sparse. Just like it's hard to miss the absence of Nene, and how Kotone seems to go out of her way to look as different as possible. Her sneakers stay until they're old and worn and the shoe-laces have been changed three times, before she tosses them out and gets a brown pair instead to go with her brown pants and yellow top.

When she turned eleven, she dyed her hair as well, and wears the male uniform once she passes into middle school and a uniform's compulsory. The teachers disapprove, but as it's not against any rules, there is little they can do. Her relatives don't feel they can say either way; they're not Kotone's parents, or Nene's. They simply provide a roof and food, paid for by the special provision the Amano siblings' parents had left behind in anticipation of their deaths. Before the pair disappeared, they never really communicated either; Kotone only knew Nene, and while Nene had had her parents for a time, she still had Kotone. And Nene was so fiercely protective and parental that Kotone needed no-one else.

And Kotone was seven and too old when she has Nene no more. Too old to accept new parents who had kept distant growing up. She talks to them like she's always had: the usual questions – "how are you," "how was school," "that green jumper looks adorable on you" and "you should really wear skirts and dresses every now and then". And her answers are the same as well: "I'm fine," "school was fine as well", "thank you", "I don't like them" – even if she used to wear her sister's skirts occasionally and now not at all.

Nene's clothes would fit her now, if she ever tried them. But she hasn't – or not when anyone can see her anyway – and they stay in Nene's room collecting dust. Instead she's in brown jeans and a yellow shirt, hair cropped just like a boy and, when wet, spiked up to take away the last of her feminine charm.

It takes a minute for even Zenjirou to recognise her, and secretly Kotone is upset at that, even if she outwardly wishes he wouldn't recognise her at all. Because while Taiki and Akari had kept in bearable contact with her, leaving gentle well-wishes and invites and pleas for replies that weren't overbearing when ignored, Zenjirou was the blazing white knight who blinded her and wouldn't give up.

She is not a child anymore, not vulnerable like she'd been in the Digital World, in need of constant protection. She is still bitter about that, and she doesn't hide it, but Zenjirou takes her bitterness in stride and follows with a smile.

The rest of the world frowns when they see a girl dressed as a boy, or they frown when Zenjirou tries to hold her hand crossing the street as though she's still seven and in need of a baby-sitter, or lead her somewhere she'd rather not go. Instead she goes to other places: she doesn't bother sneaking, because her guardians don't really have a say in what she does and neither do her teachers. Zenjirou tries, and sometimes he can convince her away from greyer areas, but he has a life of his own as well and Kotone can easily wander through places a good eleven year old girl wouldn't go.

But she doesn't want to be a girl, or eleven, or good. And no-one can understand her reasons, otherwise they wouldn't ask her. Even she doesn't, not really, otherwise she could give them a proper answer.


End file.
